Go to church, get lunch with friends, have a potluck with your neighbors, take public transportation and talk with the drivers, volunteer and network with others, keep posting on the BP forums and send requests to people in your area, etc.

Dear BP family,My family and I belong to the Gilbert Seventh-day Adventist church in Arizona. 

You could do an option contract, but our typical deal would be this (BTW, we used this on 16 ac. site in Westminster, off Hwy 36 and Church Ranch Rd./104th)Purchase and sale agreement, with a standard escrow.Escrow closes upon date certain, or when the city issues unappealabel entitlements, zoning etc.DD of some period, 30, 60, 90 day, with some non-refundable upon reaching this date.Reason to do it this way is you have a solid contract, if and when you receive zoning, you can close without question.

It' s located centrally in town near the school and church. 

I would think reaching out to party planners, wedding planners, photographers, and maybe schools, churches, synagogues and youth groups might be a good place to start. 

Likely uses would be a day care, fitness center, church, and if it's a smaller building, then retail. 

I was shamelessly showing a “second date” my rehab project (church hill in Richmond Va) when the floor suddenly collapsed beneath me.

I changed properties to a much nicer neighborhood (A-) - right behind a kids religious school/church, state maintained park, and all houses on in the vicinity are well-kept and sell for 105k+It definitely was not worth investing in a C neighborhood with my significant other.  

IE, they will not hear his side of the story, and immediately took the owners side below because she is on the board and "She is a nice person and goes to the same church as me" - the HOA President. 

My next door neighbor at the time turned out to be the entrepreneurial type who was also a "mail order minister" (until the IRS shut down the "Church of Life").